From NY Daily News:

Dozens of city workers rallied in Central Park yesterday, demanding the City Council answer a rather unusual question: "You gave horses five weeks of vacation - Why not give humans sick days?"

That's a good question. While I wholeheartedly agree with having wellness policies for the beloved animals that pull NYC's horse-drawn carriages, it's ridiculous that we can't say the same for the more than fifty million U.S. workers who don't get any paid sick days at all.

For starters, it's just bad public policy to not guarantee workers paid sick days. Studies have shown that not having paid sick days drives up the costs of health care and causes more people to work while sick--which creates public health risks for everyone. 

To summarize: sick and injured horses get to take up to five weeks of sick leave (and keep their jobs!), yet more than a third of all U.S. workers aren't guaranteed the same benefit by their employers?!

More appalling (but true) stats:

• 68 percent of PEOPLE not eligible for paid sick days have gone to work with a contagious illness like the flu.

• Nearly one in six people polled in a recent national survey (16 percent) say they have lost a job for taking time off from work because they were ill, or to care for a sick child or family member.

It's not right that we live in a country where horses are getting better workplace benefits than millions of Americans. Our nation’s failure to establish a basic workplace standard of paid sick days has never been so apparent-- and it’s costing workers, families and the public health.

Visit the National Partnership for Women and Families ">Paid Sick Days campaign website to find out if there's a paid sick leave campaign in your state.

Bus drivers, monitors, and food service workers with CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 in Connecticut captured the attention of lawmakers recently when they described being forced to choose between their jobs and their health. As part of the "Everybody Benefits" coalition, workers joined legislators, physicians, and public health groups to urge passage of a paid sick days law this year.

If you're still on the fence as to whether or not workers need and deserve paid sick days, consider the fact it's National Women's History Month--and take into account how the lack of access to sick leave disproportionately affects females in the workforce.

As the earnings of women in the workforce have increased, so has their contribution (an average of 44%) to family income. Therefore, without paid sick leave, the loss of a working mother's income could have a very detrimental effect on her family's economic well-being.

A lack of paid sick leave doesn't only affect her health and paycheck: Since so many women in the workforce also have children or take care of dependent family members, lacking paid leave holds even more significance.

SEIU members' stories provide tangible proof that some employers are putting public health and safety at risk by refusing to live up to common sense sick leave standards. Read the CSEA Connections Blog for compelling stories, including one worker who was forced to drive a bus while recovering from surgery.